Wyeast SmackPack - starter needed?

[brewbear]

Tomorrow I plan to make a witbier using Wyeast 3463. I've never used a SmackPack before, and I've also never bothered looking at yeast calculators before. Online yeast calculators have made me anxious: do I need to create a starter for the yeast?

Details:
Target volume: 25L
Target gravity: 1051
Wyeast 3463 Date of manufacture 21 March 2016

Yeast calculators seem to imply a starter would be a good idea. What would people advise? Advice gratefully received.

[Note: I've never made a starter either. I understand how to do it, but don't have any DME (can I use sugar and water?) If I need to make a starter, should I delay brewing?]

Thanks

 

[IainM]

I would, if only because it's been a few months since the yeast was packaged. Sugar isn't a good idea, as you want the yeast accustomed to consuming wort. I do mine a day or two in advance.

 

[strange-steve]

That yeast is really quite old, I'd definitely not use it without a starter. As Iain says don't make a starter with sugar because the yeast very quickly loses it's ability to metabolise maltose. My advice is postpone your brew day if possible, get some dme and make a 1L starter. To be honest doing a two step starter would be better, 0.5L then 2L, but since it's your first time just go with the 1L single step. Make it the day before then pitch the whole thing into the wort.

 

[baggybill]

What @IainM said! Delay brewing - do not do a starter with sugar.

I've done successful brews pitching fresh liquid yeast but... the one you have is getting on a bit. Get some DME and make a starter with it. It should only set you back 1 week at most.

I normally let my starter (no stir plate!) run for 6 -7 days in a demijohn (2 litres). If you need any advice or help with this, just shout.

Good luck :thumb:

 

[brewbear]

Thanks all for the reply. Will delay brewing and purchase DME on Tuesday; make a starter (1L as advised) on Tuesday; leave in brewfridge until brewday on Thursday. This will give the starter 48 hours - is that suitable?

Can someone check I know what I'm doing here? Here's how I imagine I should create a starter:
1) On the hob, boil 1Litre water. Dissolve 100g DME. Cool to hand temp.
1) Sanitise a 5L container (plastic water bottle as I don't have a demijohn; sanitised with Starsan). Transfer DME/ water solution to container. Get container/ contents to 20c in brewfridge.
3) Activate smackpack. Leave for a few hours. Add to the container with the DME/ water.
4) Leave container with lid loose in brewfridge at 20c. Shake it regularly (every hour?) (with the lid firmly on!). Do this over 48 hours.
5) This should result in 1.125L (1L DME/ water + 125ml from the smackpack). Add the whole lot of this directly to the fermenter on brewday.

Am I missing anything/ would anyone advise any differently?

[I'm thinking of doing this witbier twice: once now; once in October. I had considered reusing trub/ washing the yeast after fermentation. Never tried (yeast is a new frontier for me!), but if there's a way I can manage the yeast before this first brewday to prep for the October brew, tips gratefully received.]

Cheers!

 

[strange-steve]

That looks about right. Just to clarify though, it's easier to disolve the dme in cold water for some reason, then bring to the boil and simmer for 10-15 mins.
Quickly cool it by placing the pot in a sink full of cold water. When it's around 20-22° pour it into your sanitised bottle and add the yeast. Activate the wyeast pack a few hours before you make the starter.
Shake it for about a minute, then leave it somewhere warm. Shake it as often as you can while it's doing it's thing to keep the yeast in suspension and to aid as exchange.
It really only needs about 16 hours before it's ready to use, that way the yeast is being pitched while active and it really reduces lag time.
I'm sure I don't need to say but be meticulous with sanitation when making the starter.

 

[brewbear]

Thanks, strange-steve: that's a great help. with your comment on the 16 hours, I think I'll aim to brew the day after I get the starter going in that case.

Many thanks for the advice.

 

[baggybill]

> I'm thinking of doing this witbier twice: once now; once in October.

Two ways you can do this - make a bigger starter and save some (more time / bigger starter required) or just grab some trub off the finished brew for your next starter.

I do/done both ways recently. Both ways have worked equally well for me. I prefer trub now as:

1) I get a full/bigger size starter to pitch.
2) I just fill a 500ml PET bottle with trub (waste) once my brew is racked.

I don't bother with any washing etc. but I do cold crash my starters and decant the spent wort :grin:

 

[strange-steve]

> I'm thinking of doing this witbier twice: once now; once in October.

Two ways you can do this - make a bigger starter and save some (more time / bigger starter required) or just grab some trub off the finished brew for your next starter.

I do/done both ways recently. Both ways have worked equally well for me. I prefer trub now as:

1) I get a full/bigger size starter to pitch.
2) I just fill a 500ml PET bottle with trub (waste) once my brew is racked.

I don't bother with any washing etc. but I do cold crash my starters and decant the spent wort :grin:

Because the yeast is old I don't think the inoculation rate will be high enough to make a larger starter worth doing, better to collect some trub and use that.
I also don't bother washing, but I also don't bother decanting starters unless it's more than 10% of the batch volume, it shouldn't have any flavour impact.

 

[brewbear]

Thanks for the advice, all. Starter seems to have taken off quite happily and after 16 hours is bubbling very happily. Will update after fermentation.

View attachment ImageUploadedByTapatalk1470822232.340447.jpg

 

[BeerCat]

Making starters is a great idea. Since i started doing it i buy very little yeast. I think the Hef yeast would be good for top cropping although not tried it.

 

[cheshirehomebrew]

thought the whole idea of a smack pack was its all in one you don't need a starter, or am I wrong?

 

[strange-steve]

thought the whole idea of a smack pack was its all in one you don't need a starter, or am I wrong?

No the smack pack has a pouch of nutrient which kickstarts the yeast's metabolism whereas a starter actually increases the cell count.

 

[DoctorMick]

thought the whole idea of a smack pack was its all in one you don't need a starter, or am I wrong?

If they're fresh they will ferment out a beer without using a starter but you're more likely to stress the yeast than you would if you made a starter which is particularly important if you're going to reuse the yeast.

 

[brewbear]

Do I worry unnecessarily? I'm concerned that the fermentation may have stalled... Here are the details:

Mashed at 67c. Pitched whole starter (1L after 24 hours)
Fermented at 21c (brewfridge air temp) using Wyeast Forbidden Fruit 3463 (Wyeast recommend 17-24C).

Hydrometer readings:
Day 0 OG: 1052
Day 2: 1037
Day 4 1028
Day 5 1028
Day 6 1028

(I keep a sample jar and hydrometer in the brewfridge next to the FV. The sample jar usually mirrors the FV gravity quite accurately, so I haven't taken samples on all these days, but did resample on Day 5)

My nervousness comes from the elderliness of the yeast (hence the initial reason for this thread, although the starter seemed very vibrant prior to pitching) and also stalled fermentations in previous brews (2 of last 5 brews struggled to get below 1020, but I've since changed aeration to "shaking a lot in a 5l bottle")

Note: I aerated the brew with 2litres in a 5 litre bottle and shook like hell (to try to avoid the underattenuation I'd had earlier this year). At the point of yeast pitching (starter), there was 5-7 inches of froth, which I read as a ****load of air. After 8 hours there was 6 inches of krausen, and there remains 4-6 inches of krausen on Day 6.

Should I be nervous/ pitch a new yeast (I have a Mangrove Jack's dried yeast witbier for backup), or should I stop worrying?

#nervousfirsttimewitbierparent

 

[Soton]

For reference this is a good way to learn how to make a starter, if you listen it gives the ratio needed so you can work out how to step up your starters, the second link is also a guide to a yeast starter but with a little less of the laboratory theme
[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1zUYxb-_B8A[/ame]

[ame]https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jMhFerNTwbQ[/ame]

In the videos they are using a stir plates but that is optional ( at the moment a stir plate can be bought from eBay for about �£28, it was �£25 when I got mine but the drop in the �£ has put a couple of quid on it)
If anyone is interested I can post a link to the eBay stir plate

 

[aterroba]

Hi Soton, could you please add the ebay link? Does it also include the flask?

 

[brewbear]

To tie up loose ends on this thread (in case anyone reads it and wonders how the yeast turned out): brew dropped from 1052 og to 1009 fg after around 16 days. Looks like the starter worked a treat, so thanks all.

Beer tastes good, but odd (never made a beer with coriander and nutmeg in before).

I've bottled some of the yeast slurry to try reusing. Fingers crossed!

 

[IronBlue]

The smack pack is not really anything to do with it, you make a starter to increase the number of cells. With liquid yeast the number of cells decreases quite quickly from the date of manufacture (or harvesting).

The number of cells you need depends on your volume and your OG. In your case you needed about 236 Billion cells. Your Wyeast has about 100B when new but now has just 25B using today's date. So you would need over 9 packets to hit enough cells...

Making a starter is obviously required, but a 1 litre starter would only take you to about 90B cells, nowhere near enough, but much better than not making one.

Using a stir plate would push this example to way over 100B, and making a 2-stage starter (1L twice) would just get you to the 236B target.

Secret is to use as fresh a yeast as possible, and calculate your one or two-stage starter size requirements for your beer. This site is very good and quite straight forward: http://www.yeastcalculator.com/

Harvesting slurry to re-pitch is a good way to avoid making a starter every brew.... (and the calculators will tell you how much slurry you need too...)